“They did the worst stupid things together”: in the footsteps of Émile known as “Corne d’Aurochs”, the little-known friend of Georges Brassens

He was “Corne d’Aurochs”, Émile Miramont, well known in Lombez where he spent the end of his life before joining the sky in 2004. “I never really knew where this nickname came from”, says Véronique Bonaldo, his daughter. A nickname given by his childhood friend, with whom the links have remained unshakeable: Georges Brassens. The famous singer dedicated this somewhat mocking eponymous song to him. A friendly revenge after Émile Miramont moved away from Paris, where the two friends shared a life of poverty, to found his family.

In the living room, the shelves house the books written by her father, carefully preserved by Véronique Miramont-Bonaldo. Now retired, she has plunged back into the pages of memories where she still discovers, sometimes with surprise, the youthful anecdotes of Émile Miramont with Georges Brassens.

Émile Miramont was born in Richelieu (Indre-et-Loire) before the family moved to Sète in Hérault. “They were neighbors of the Brassens, that’s where they became friends and never separated,” says Véronique. Far from being two studious students, “they did the worst stupid things. So much so that they were punished and punished every Sunday.”

From Sète to Paris before Lombez

Véronique Miramont-Bonaldo’s grandparents did not really appreciate young Brassens, a bad influence, according to them, on Émile Miramont. “But my father was small and rickety, which didn’t stop him from picking fights. Brassens was often there to defend him.” The years passed and their paths diverged for a while but the two friends remained in touch. The Miramont family ended up in Aude and Georges Brassens, tired of schooling and working with his father, left to live in Paris. “When my father learned of this, he left to join him, to the great dismay of my grandparents who were mad with rage,” specifies Véronique Bonaldo. They were barely adults.

After a stay with his aunt in occupied Paris, it was in this inn for people without a home or place that Georges Brassens found refuge, managing to escape the STO. There he met Jeanne Le Bonniec and Marcel Planche who inspired his most legendary songs.

Émile Miramont will join him. “They remained in poverty for several years, with barely enough to eat. But my father had a cousin there, René Alquier, he was a commissioner and at the same time the lyricist of Bourvil!”, smiles Véronique. This same commissioner that Brassens evokes in “Corne d’Aurochs”, writing: “that he had a second cousin, highly placed among the Argousins”, he finally became friends with him. The latter welcomed young Émile with open arms during difficult times.

And then life separated them again. Brassens launches into music. His childhood friend leaves Paris and starts a family. Véronique Bonaldo remembers this first meeting with Georges Brassens in Lyon where the family lived in the 1960s. “He had come for the funeral of one of their mutual friends with my father, it was on this occasion that he had eaten at home.”

After this event, during the concerts of the singer passing through the city, Émile attended each performance. “He took my brother or me, in turn, to see him on stage, we often stopped by his dressing room to greet him,” she reveals.

“He was quite discreet about his childhood”

As an adult, the latter came to live in the family home located in Lombez, in the south of Gers. After his career in Lyon as a representative, Émile also decided to return to Gascony. “He was a handyman, hunter and fisherman, whenever he had time, he wrote,” explains Véronique.

On the advice of his friends, “Corne d’Aurochs” wrote stories* evoking Brassens, their friendship, their young years, poverty and their adventures. “It was thanks to these books that I learned about my father’s life, he was not someone who liked to talk about it too much, he was quite discreet about his childhood and his friends , her daughter explains today, “it was friends before family.” Émile Miramont also avoided major events, where Brassens was invited. “He didn’t really like this atmosphere with all the celebrities and people galore, he preferred the intimate setting.”

Nearly three decades after Brassens’ death in 1981, which inevitably left a void in the mind of Émile Miramont, he found Georges Boulard. He is the founder of the Brassens Festival and the two will become friends. He was thus able to join a network which maintained the memory of the singer. “He could find people who shared their passion for Georges and that suited my father.”